(Swans - May 5, 2008)
The Kosovo debacle continues to haunt Western
governments, especially the U.S., and has already
exacerbated a number of conflicts in Turkey, China,
Spain, and the Caucasus regions. The illegal
recognition of Kosovo's "independence" by mostly
Western nations (less than 40 out of 192) has
encouraged terrorists that they can successfully alter
the borders of sovereign nations via force. Though
the Kosovo case is called "special" by many Western
foreign policy "experts," in reality, it is the
tremendous misreporting and censorship of the Serbian
side of the tragic Yugoslav civil wars which condoned
and justified mistreatment of Serbians that is unique
and has encouraged Western imperialism elsewhere via
the "humanitarian" intervention "concept."

Recently, Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte wrote a
book wherein she detailed a macabre international
trafficking ring involving the harvesting of organs
from live Serbian prisoners during 1999 organized at
the highest levels of Kosovo Albanian leadership and
her extreme difficulty in prosecuting these criminals
due to Western lack of interest in prosecuting crimes
committed against Serbian civilians. The government
of Switzerland banned her book. This pattern of
censorship of Serbian suffering has been consistent
since the Western-catalyzed breakup of Yugoslavia in
1989. Rarely do Western media outlets allow a Serbian
voice to be heard except maybe fifth-column "Serbian"
voices from extremists who wanted NATO to bomb their
own people (e.g., Srdja Popovich). Too frequently, we
hear anti-Serbian perspectives from Albanians,
Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenians (many of whom
have no connection with or expertise on Serbia), or
other ignorant, racist, and biased columnists who know
nothing of the Balkans or are virulent Serb- and
Russian- haters (e.g., Georgie Ann Geyer, Morton
Abramowitz, and Zbigniew Brzezinski). Indeed, many
Western columnists such as David Rhode and Samantha
Power made their careers, even winning Pulitzer
prizes, at the expense of Serbian suffering and the
truth alleging "genocide" committed by Serbians but
never investigating atrocities committed against
Serbians that (e.g., in the case of Srebrenica) formed
a strong motive for revenge. When anti-Serbian
points of view were published or aired, rarely did the
Western media allow a response. If we were lucky, a
published letter to the editor of 250 words or less
would have to suffice as a response to 800-plus-word
articles full of distortions, misrepresentations, and
outright lies. And of course, there were numerous
times (e.g., The Boston Globe and The New York Times)
where dozens if not hundreds of us responded to
falsities in numerous articles to see nothing
published challenging the "conventional wisdom." In
an interview with Voice of America in 1999 (which even
misspelled my name), my words were so distorted,
clipped, and misrepresented that I will never grant an
interview with this organization again. It appears
that many of our political and social "elite" need to
revisit the concept of debate, which is essential to
democracy.

Universities were not immune to censorship of the
Serbian point of view as activists and scholars with
potentially "pro-Serbian" or alternative points of
view were rarely invited to symposia and conferences
"debating" the Yugoslav civil wars. When challenging
biased anti-Serbian presentations, we were frequently
not allowed to ask questions or given a few minutes
(for one question) to counter the ignorance of an
hour-long presentation. After our challenging
Croatian Prof. Ivo Banac at a conference at Wellesley
College many years ago, a professor there actually
apologized to our group of activists for the fact that
no Serbians were invited to present their views except
Srdja Popovich, who advocated the bombing of his own people.

As a Serbian-American activist, I could write
(and probably will) a book on the countless futile
attempts I and my fellow activists had trying to
express points of view contrary to the US State
Department whether in writing letters, op-eds, calling
radio stations and television stations, in Western
nations. The goal of preventing the Serbian side of
the tragic civil wars was aimed at misrepresenting
what were really civil wars in the former Yugoslavia,
where no side was completely innocent, as wars of
"aggression" where all Serbs were "evil" and their
enemies (Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Slovenians, Kosovo
Albanians, etc.) were all "angels." By encouraging
racism against Serbians and Serbian-Americans,
NATO illegal and vicious aggression against the Serbian
people was made palatable to many in the West. Just
as some US soldiers referred to dead Iraqis as "crispy
critters" in the first Gulf War in 1991, and the
subsequent atrocities and torture committed by some US
soldiers in places such as Abu Ghraib prison and
Haditha, mercilessly slaughtering your enemies whether
innocent civilians or fighting opponents is made much
easier when they are viewed as subhuman. Given that,
e.g., Richard Holbrooke referred to all Serbs as
"murderous assholes" and Madeleine Albright told a
friend of mine (in Serbian) that Serbs are animals, it
is evident that racism exists at the highest levels in
the US government.

As a deeply patriotic American, I am very
concerned that many of my misguided, ignorant, and
corporate-controlled leaders are leading my country
toward total war and economic ruin. The
"humanitarian" intervention in Yugoslavia was a
ruse to support NATO's continued senseless existence (in
the wake of the Cold War) and illegal occupation of
Kosovo to act against Russia and to serve as the
strong arm of US foreign policy. It has set a
precedent for how to achieve Western foreign policy
objectives using the pretence of bringing "democracy"
to "enemy" nations such as the formerly peaceful and
truly multiethnic former Yugoslavia by encouraging
secessionists, ethnically cleansing and slaughtering
the "enemy" population (Serbs) from their
centuries-old territories, and rewarding "client"
separatists/terrorists by aiding in the creation of
fascist ethnically and religiously "pure" banana
republics such as Croatia and Kosovo that still revere
the Nazis to this day. The Western "might versus
right" and "preemptive" approach violates
international law and is destroying the current world
order that was established over the sacrifices made by
millions during WWII. The mainstream
corporate-controlled Western media has served as a
cloak to mask machinations of Western leaders and is
the single greatest threat to democracy and world
peace today. All citizens of the world must learn the
truth of what really transpired in Yugoslavia and stop
their leaders from continuing on their disastrous
course toward WWIII.

· · · · · ·

If you find our work useful and appreciate its quality, please consider
making a donation. Money is spent to pay for Internet costs, maintenance
and upgrade of our computer network, and development of the site.

Michael Pravica is an assistant professor of physics at the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas (tenured effective July 1, 2008). Of Serbian ancestry, Professor Pravica has been active in seeking to present an alternative point of view on the
civil wars in the Balkans since 1992. He was formerly the
Vice President of the Serbian American Alliance of New
England, the Vice President of the Serbian American
Alliance of New York, and the Treasurer of the St.
Simeon's Serbian Orthodox Church in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Do you wish to share your opinion? We invite your comments. E-mail the Editor. Please include your full name, address and phone number (the city, state/country where you reside is paramount information). When/if we publish your opinion we will only include your name, city, state, and country.